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“Gear up,” I tell my husband, “It’s dinner time.” This is officially the worst time of the day in our house for one simple reason: My two-year-old son is unofficially the worst eater on the face of the planet. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but he certainly has to rank in the top five.

Here’s the thing, I know this is a battle happening between children and their parents all over. It’s a battle happening day after day. Little ones screaming their war cry. Parents sporting war paint…oh, wait, those are just dark circles under our eyes. Well, you get the point – especially if you’re facing this battle in your own home.

Dinnertime may be a battle in our house but we have managed to gain some ground (knock on wood hard). Here are some tips on how to get picky eaters to eat:

Let’s start with what the experts say first. These are a few of my favorite recommendations from parenting expert, Dr. Sears. He recommends:

1. Offer a nibble: Toddlers like to graze through a variety of foods so offer them a customized smorgasbord. Consider using an ice-cube tray, muffin tin, or other compartmentalized dish.

Do you need some help coming up with different food pairings to offer your little one? First off, remember that he or she isn’t going to look at you and say “Mommy, do you really think these two side dishes complement one another?”

Second, check out the 25 toddler lunch ideas in this article; just because they say “lunch” doesn’t mean they can’t be used at dinner.

2. Dip it or spread it: Young children enjoy immersing their foods in a tasty dip. Try spreading foods like cheese, peanut butter, and fruit concentrate on crackers, toast, or rice cakes.

4. Appearance is important: For something new and different, why not use your child’s own toy plates for dishing out a snack? Kids like the unexpected when it comes to serving dishes, anything from plastic measuring cups to ice cream cones may be a hit.

5. Be a cut up: How much your child will eat could be dependent on how you cut (or present) the food. Try cutting their food with cookie cutters to make it more appealing.

Now, moving on to the non-expert advice (a.k.a what worked for us).Though experts may cringe at the antics we go through in an effort to get our son to shovel a spoonful of peas into his mouth, if it reduces the stress in our house and fills his tummy I’m sticking with it!

1. Let them be a control freak: Give your little one options of what to eat. In addition, even if something will likely be a complete mess to clean up (think yogurt or spaghetti sauce) let him or her control the spoon or fork.

Flickr via Toddy Klassy

You can offer guidance to ensure it reaches the mouth with most of the food intact, but let him or her shove it in.

2. Get tricky: Try to incorporate your child’s favorite foods with the foods he or she is resistant to eating. For example, if you’d love your child to eat some healthy protein like white meat chicken nuggets try encrusting them with a tried and true favorite like Goldfish crackers.

3. Use “big” people’s plates and bowls: Even if you have pleaded with your child ten times (or maybe a hundred times is more realistic) to eat that bowl of Cheerios, it may somehow be more appealing when placed in a container that is like what “mommy” or “daddy” eat out of.

Flickr via Tri Nguyen

4. Put on a show: My son is pretty high maintenance at dinnertime. He often expects dinner AND a show. That’s right. I have been known to dance around the kitchen pounding his Kindermusik sticks together and singing ridiculously loud Disney tunes to put a smile on his face and a carrot in his mouth.

5. Teach multitasking: Like many toddlers, my son is a massive fan of the alphabet and counting. I suppose it’s because I drill it into his head no less than 20 times a day, to the point that I even count the stairs when I am walking by myself (Yep, I just admitted that!).

With that said, I have discovered whipping out the flashcards achieves a good level of success at dinnertime. I will frequently insert “scoop and in the mouth” in between flipping through the cards to keep him reminded of his primary objective.

Flickr via Mary Tsao

6. Distraction: Put books, magazines, newspapers, or whatever other reading material is lying around to use at dinnertime. However, try to put that time to good use and make it a learning experience. For example, point out animals and objects your little one may recognize.

Personally, I’ve had great success by letting my son pursue the reading material at his leisure while he eats.

There you have it, the expert advice versus mom advice on how to get your picky eater to eat. Though experts may file my recommendations into the completely dysfunctional category, they work for us and hopefully will work for you. Good luck!